SO it might be better to put this in the general art stuff forum, but someone mentioned art challenges in regards to this & basically I was thinking of making a weekly minicomic challenge!

this thread is for discussion of that, as well as other ideas for fun art exercise-type things we could do.

here's what I'm thinking with the minicomic challenge:

SpoilerShow

everyone knows you gotta do a lot of bad drawings before you can do good ones. but the thing with comics is they require a LOT of skills that you will never learn by just doing illustrations, even if you do a million. it's better if you draw a bunch of comics before you start on your Magnum Opus Baby (honestly just ignore that creature's squalling for as long as possible. trust me).

anyways, I was thinking of encouraging that kind of practice with a weekly challenge theme that you have to do in 1-5 pages. and probably keeping it to an hour a page, since this is layout and storytelling practice not "mmm perfect fuckign perfectionist linework" practice.

there will probably be an emphasis on taking inspiration from fiction/poems/songs/history/etc., since this isn't a WRITING challenge and I don't want people to feel like they have to come up with a short story on the spot. it's just about learning to work with comics as a medium!

anyways I'd appreciate ideas for challenges & feedback. if it all works out we'll have a bunch of fun themed comics to show for it!

Maybe ignore the last two verses of Hotaru no Hikari because they're very nationalistic
We didn't even sing them at my school's graduation

The first parts are about diligent students studying by whatever light they've got available, be it moonlight or the light of fireflies, so if you want some neat imagery to the tune of auld lang syne for god knows what reason I've got you covered

@TheEmptyPot: yeah, as I was writing it I started thinking biweekly might be a little better? I don't want to go too much longer than that though, bc activity is good. also, I really do encourage people to spend as little time on this as they feel comfortable doing. if your response to a challenge is a single page that you spent an hour on, that's totally fine! as long as you feel it gets across what you want.

(although I know it's hard to cut corners and post stuff you feel is too messy, I honestly think it's a good habit to form for comics? there are some comics whose art I LOVE that is frankly super messy in places, but the messiness isn't important because our eyes don't really rest on it while reading the story. so I think relaxing the urge to clean stuff up and instead focusing on good energy and composition is healthy.)

also, I should probably have it such that you can still post comics for challenges whose deadline has passed (maybe only under a spoiler, though? but it's not like you CAN'T TRY A CHALLENGE UNLESS YOU CAN GET IT DONE IN TIME)

@Papers: yeah, different art styles is fine and even encouraged! whatever gives you the motivation to draw and helps you practice. I'll probably play around with some style-based challenges, too. (like drawing a super-serious scene in a cartoony style without losing the dramatic weight. or doing 2 versions of a page, one more "realistic" and one more surreal and imagery-based)